Nuclear talk is cheap, nuclear power is not

When it comes to keeping promises, the nuclear industry and its supporters are very good at talking the talk but very bad at walking the walk.

The industry’s excited talk about a nuclear “renaissance” where a thousand new nuclear reactors would bloom and save the planet from catastrophic climate change turned out to be a dangerous fantasy. The time, money and resources wasted fantasising over new nuclear reactors have left a lost decade where energy efficiency and renewables could have made real and planet-saving progress on reducing emissions but have been shamefully neglected.

Showing a tasteful grasp for the timing of their propaganda– the day after the 2nd anniversary of the Fukushima disaster – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and the UK –“affirmed their commitment to collaborate in the context of the role that they believe that nuclear energy can play a part in the EU’s future low carbon energy mix”

Or, in straight-talk, these nations wish to continue to prop up the nuclear boondoggle – expensive, unsafe, dirty and unable to make any significant contribution to fighting climate change – even while the chances of humanity limiting the global temperature increase to an average of two degrees Celsius are looking increasingly and terrifyingly unlikely.

The thing is, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time as an observer of the nuclear industry and its boosters, it’s this: nuclear talk is cheap while nuclear power is expensive and getting more so by the day.

Which is certainly why the signatories to this week’s communiqué have said:

The Member States wishing to construct new nuclear power stations signalled that an investment environment must be created taking account of the long term nature of nuclear infrastructure projects in the EU.

“An investment environment” is spin for fixing the game in the nuclear industry’s favour. It’s a fancy way of saying that governments must guarantee the profits of the nuclear companies for decades as well as shielding them from any liability should their reactors cause an accident. It’s propaganda that says the public must pay while the nuclear companies profit.

And all this after 60 years of the nuclear age and levels of government support and multi-billions in subsidies and bail-outs that the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries can only dream of. It borders on the pathetic.

After such waste and incompetence, and instead of lauding nuclear power, these 12 EU nations should be laughing the nuclear industry out of town. If would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the damage these nuclear fantasies have caused and are causing.

GE statement about India is a very important one: they are candidly saying that nuclear plants are not economically viable (at least not for manufactu...

GE statement about India is a very important one: they are candidly saying that nuclear plants are not economically viable (at least not for manufacturers) unless someone else shoulders the risks of operating them.
Of course this is no news to anyone who is familiar with the terms of the debate on nuclear power but still it is a very important piece of evidence.

for example, when you see america, which is the strongerst country in the world, they have 8 above of aircraft carrier. when you managing aircraft car...

for example, when you see america, which is the strongerst country in the world, they have 8 above of aircraft carrier. when you managing aircraft carrier, you need a whole of big city's electricity for oneday sailing but they use nuclear energy so they can sailing those for 8 years with out electricity.

buti it is really dangerous.. like fukushima, they got tsunami and nuclear powerplant were broken, so it was turning to city of death.. i think we als...

buti it is really dangerous.. like fukushima, they got tsunami and nuclear powerplant were broken, so it was turning to city of death.. i think we also have one in korea, i'm not sure.
i dont really know what is right or wrong here. but we always be careful with nuclear

@Nope - I understand it is difficult to fully grasp the consequences of small chances combined with large effects. I also find this difficult.

1. Chernobyl was seen as one of the best designs available as late as 1985 by people from the IAEA. It was then seen as meeting all safety and security standards - those from the Soviet government and the IAEA. There are even 10 RBMK reactors still operating today in Kursk, Sosnovy Bor and Smolensk! The accident was - like all nuclear accidents - unique. The risk for such an accident is always there.

2. Fukushima was more than earthquake and tsunami. A whole spectrum of issues played a role and Japanese investigation committees, the Japanese government and even operator TEPCO agree that Fukushima was a man-made accident. A lot of factors played a role that also would cause an accident when triggered by other factors, be it natural, man-made or a combination.

3. There are more nuclear accidents that caused harm and a lot of damage. Think of Bohunice A1, Mayak, Windscale, Tokaimura, Greifswald 5 and TMI. But that is besides the point. The issue is that large accidents with impacts comparable to Chernobyl and Fukushima cannot be excluded. And it looks like the chance of this happening again is a lot larger than the nuclear industry would want us to believe.

4. Nuclear power stations need people - to design, construct, fuel, operate, maintain and dismantle. A nuclear power station without human interference does not exist. And even if you would make one, working for a world without people would not make sense. Next to the interactions mentioned above, there are human interaction in accidents, terrorist attack, sabotage, acts of war. The human factor is there and will never go away, and you are right: humans are fallible - as is technique.

5. You cannot reduce the risk to zero. As long as you concentrate a large amount of strong radioisotopes in one place, you introduce a risk that was not there before. You can try to reduce that risk, but never get rid of it. That is what we call rest-risk. I agree with the German Ethics Commission on a Safe Energy Future, which advised the German government on the nuclear phase-out after Fukushima. They stated that if you have an alternative that can deliver affordable, secure and climate saving electricity services, you have the moral obligation to phase-out the nuclear risk. And the only way to do that is by phasing out nuclear power.

You are, of course, in your right to disagree with Greenpeace. But don't do that lightly. We have based our pledge for nuclear phase-out on solid evidence. And we have seen with our own eyes the mess caused by Mayak, Windscale, Chernobyl and Fukushima - as well as during "normal" operation of the nuclear fuel chain, like recently in Akokan, Niger, in la Hague and Tricastin in France, and the impossibility of solving the high-level radioactive waste problem, even in countries like Finland, Sweden and France. These are all risks we do not need to take. Nuclear power is not driven by a societal or economic need - it is in my view driven by greed, by blind ambition, by power games. Not the ingredients for a clean and sustainable future...

1. Chernobyl happened because an individual, who was high in the communist party in the USSR, breached safety ...

Nope is on the money here.

1. Chernobyl happened because an individual, who was high in the communist party in the USSR, breached safety procedures and did something that only he was a good idea at the time. It is important to note that the USSR at the time was at the forefront of nuclear technology. He performed an experiment and warned that anyone who tried to stop it would be terminated and probably end up in jail. Such was the political culture at the time. He was prosecuted for criminal mismanagement.

2. If the backup generators were land side of the reactors then Fukushima Daiichi would have been fine. There may have been a small release of radiation but nothing major. Such as what happened at Fukushima Dani.

3. There have been many nuclear accidents but the vast majority will only affect 1 or 2 individuals. You will not be able to name an industry that hasn't had a large number of minor accidents. I have spoken to several nuclear experts in the last few weeks, talking about safety margins mainly. They were telling me that the failure for a single component has to be down to 1 in a billion and all systems must be backed up. The safety record speaks for itself. In terms of people being killed it is the safest form of high production energy. Wind probably has a better safety record but the electricity production is a fraction and some of the accidents that have happened there are gruesome. Only look them up if you have a strong stomach.

4. Completely agree and the punishments for doing so are getting considerably steeper. To the point that there is very little to gain from messing around with the reactor.

5. They already work safely. Some have bad designs and need fixed I admit, that is the same with any industry. There are currently 431 reactors in operation worldwide, the vast majority of which have operated without any notable incident.

Renewables have a role to play but it is not going to be the primary source of electricity. The only country to adopt the method of replacing nuclear with renewables was Germany and they are close to blackouts. So close in fact legislation had to be passed in November last year to try and prevent it. The end result was an adaptation of coal, the dirtiest form of energy. The problem has been solved in a manner as they have started importing large quantities of electricity from France, which ultimately comes from Nuclear.

Ay @AliShaw - facts, facts, facts...
1. The Chernobyl accident started quite a bit more complex than that. It was brought on-line early - before all tests were performed - to over-shoot the five-year plan ending 31 December 1985... it is not usual to do start-up related tests during full operation. The test was scheduled for the day, but the electricity was needed, so it was shifted to the unprepared night-shift. and so on... A lot of human failure involved, next to weaknesses in design.
2. Daini only survived hanging literary on a threat: one grid line surviving the earthquake... not really because of the rest of the plant was so well off...
3. We've had the discussion about victims before. I just cannot comprehend that for you the 160000 evacuees of Fukushima and the 600 casualties already certified don't count - all people that could not prepare for what happened to them.
4. Human failure can only in the margins be influenced by punishment. It is sometimes ill will - but that is only sometimes. Most near-misses we have seen have to do with clumsiness, lack of overview, being distracted, bad planning, over-ambitious planning... the infamous left vacuum cleaner in Ringhals...
5. I still have to meet a single reactor that had no incidents. It's machines. Machines have mess-ups. The large accidents we have gone through are the result of large numbers, very large numbers of smaller incidents...

Your Germany story is dead wrong. Germany has not been near to black-outs and certainly further away from it now than it was a decade ago (remember the Ems super cruiseliner black-out?), simply because there is more than sufficient capacity installed. The temporary surge in coal is not good - but it is a market-phenomenon that is not related to the nuclear phase-out, nor to the renewable phase-in. This extra coal generated electricity was actually exported - but even without that, Germany is currently the largest electricity exporter in Europe - forget about the trumpeted imports from France. Apart from April and May 2011 they did not happen. If you want to be prepared for the future, you'd better get used to the idea of 60-70% of electricity provided by renewables by 2030 and virtually 100% in 2050, certainly within Europe.
Ask RWE, E.On, Vattenfal and EnBW what it means for them that they did not want to realise that before...

I know Chernobyl was more complex than that but to into the complete detail of it would require a months worth of Sundays. In short ...

Jan:

I know Chernobyl was more complex than that but to into the complete detail of it would require a months worth of Sundays. In short it was nothing to do with electricity production it was purely one mans determination to see through an experiment. The technicians could have stopped it when the experiment started to go wrong but they didn't as they knew it meant their job and since this was the USSR probably prison.

Dani: The "1 line" that survived had multiple backups that remained functioning. Hardly what I would call by a thread.

I feel very sorry for the victims but that is the case with every accident or disaster, however there is also the strong possibility that they were killed by the tsunami.

Human failure can cause accidents but the margins are much greater than you make it seem. Thats why every single piece of equipment in any industry comes with safety systems, which themselves are backed up. Here is the thing, the temperatures and pressures operated within a nuclear power plant are not too dissimilar to those operated in normal chemical and power plants. If your concerns were based on reality we would be seeing massive disasters on a regular basis across a range of industries. Apart from the reactor, the equipment used in a nuclear powerplant is almost identical to the equipment used in normal power plants. The reactor itself has better safety margins than any of that equipment.

Of course you are yet to meet a reactor that hasn't had an incident. You will not meet a single piece of equipment anywhere in the world in any industry that hasn't had some incident. However the vast majority of the time it means nothing, and the rest of the time its something minor that can be fixed.

My story on Germany is not wrong, if you wish to ignore it then that is fair enough. The legislation was passed on the 29th of November 2012 if it is any interest to you.

Of course RWE npower are very keen on the building of new nuclear power stations and are working with E.ON on the Horizon nuclear project. Funny you should mention the targets as I have spoken one of the worlds biggest renewable energy developers and those targets are "completely unrealistic". So I dont know where you get your figures from but it clearly isnt from industry.

Don't get me wrong, I would love for you to be right but its not going to happen. Maybe it will happen one day but I dont think that it will be in my lifetime. The technology just isn't there.

Over the last two months I have been looking into the margins in EU reactors because of the stress tests. They are not really impressive and in some cases in my humble opinion too small. One of the Fukushima lessons was to think the unthinkable. That lesson is most certainly not learned for power stations like Muehleberg in Switzerland, Wylfa in the UK, Temelin in the Czech Republic or Ringhals in Sweden, to mention only a few.

Dive into the story of Fukushima Daini, i'd say... most of what happened in Daiichi when the tsunami hit also happened there. The most striking difference was the remaining power line that enabled the workers to continue working. Three of the four seawater pumping stations failed. The vision and instrumentation helped them master the situation - nothing else.

Interesting you think that RWE and E.On are still in Horizon. They stepped out a year ago and since have sold it to Hitachi.

Wondering with whom from the RE industry you've spoken. I have spoken with many from the industry who believe that we are underestimating the possibilities in our energy [r]evolution scenario... We preferred to remain relatively conservative.

Just watch it happen all around you. The technology is there and it is delivering today already.